For to this you have been called

1 Peter 2: 21-25

²¹For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. 
²² ‘He committed no sin,
   and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ 
²³When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. ²⁴He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

How can we make peace in a violent world? How can our baptismal vows contribute to conflict resolution? Our natural tendency seems to be to react to violence with violence otherwise we may appear weak and become victims. Is this what Jesus taught and practiced? Someone once said ‘an eye for an eye make the whole world bind’. The early church believed and lived by the principle that Jesus taught the authentic meaning of the Law and the Prophets. The writer of 1 Peter addressing people who were in the most difficult of circumstances taught that if we meet violence with violence we get two times the violence and none of us are free of it. We all become blind. The example of Jesus life is that He made peace in a violent world by not returning the abuse, yet refusing to go along with the oppressive violence of His age. He offered a community of alternatives. His dissent, His baptism on the cross, was to be identified with by His followers through water baptism. Jesus baptism on the cross is an end of the baptism of violence and abuse. In a world of competing interests the followers of Jesus acknowledge conflict but refuse to be defined by these conflicts. To acknowledge the conflict of interests and value this diversity is the opposite of making us all the same; Jesus did not die to make us all the same. The followers of Jesus want to be followers of Jesus but value and respect those who do not. Only one of the people crucified with Jesus that day acknowledged Jesus teaching and practice along with a Roman centurion; but Jesus continued to set the example of non-violent resistance to violence; resistance to the practices of Rome, the religious establishment, the fickle crowed and their party political representatives.